Author Topic: New theory for origin of life (Read 925 times)

Sandman · « **on:** December 05, 2002, 01:58:44 AM »

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/12/021204080856.htm

Saurdaukar · « **Reply #1 on:** December 05, 2002, 02:04:26 AM »

Interesting...

Kanth · « **Reply #2 on:** December 05, 2002, 02:53:24 AM »

It's soup!

bounder · « **Reply #3 on:** December 05, 2002, 03:30:37 AM »

Nah, it's not soup. The the problem with the soup theory, despite experiments that :

a)claimed to repicate the environment on pre-life earth
b)made some longer organic molecules by zapping soup with lightning.

was that all these interesting organic molecules would drift down out of the atmosphere into the sea. The soup was much too dilute for anything to happen in the timescales involved

The sulphide bubble idea an elegant theory. Rocks and mineral deposits are known to have self organising properties, and mineral rich liquids do indeed preciptate into seawater small capsules of deposits. we shall see where it goes.

I believe the origins of life are lost to universal history, and that life is an absolute certainty where environments exits to support it. I don't belief life on earth necessarily started here.

Hortlund · « **Reply #4 on:** December 05, 2002, 04:52:47 AM »

Yeah, this one's definitively got potential.
Instead of "life evolved in the primitive oceans, or the primordeal soup" we get
"life evolved inside a rock".

GRUNHERZ · « **Reply #5 on:** December 05, 2002, 06:12:09 AM »

Hortlund does God go to the bathroom?

bounder · « **Reply #6 on:** December 05, 2002, 09:30:55 AM »

hortlund, that is a very simplistic analysis indeed, which is fair enough.

I'm glad you think it is a hopeful avenue of enquiry, but something tells me you are using sarcasm to indicate your perjorative attitude towards this scientific inquiry.

This is a culmination of many years of research, and has just opened to peer review, so you can expect scientific rebuttals and refinements in the future. Your prejudice is showing.

Is your implicit contempt for the study and by extention, other inquiries into the origins of life, based on the beliefs you hold about the divine nature of life?

You seem to hold scientific inquiry in contempt, or at least your postings indicate such a tendency. Is this intentional, or do, like so many of us, take a lot of science for granted and are simply baffled by it?

Quantum Electro-Dynamics for example. Very few of us on this board even begin to understand the principle, yet our daily lives depend on the unprovable theories built up upon an understanding of QED.

SLO · « **Reply #7 on:** December 05, 2002, 10:38:18 AM »

when you can explain to me where they come from....

why so many pyramids around the world have all the same drawings.....a man with a big head...and a craft with fire coming out.

then i'll explain the origins of life to you:D

miko2d · « **Reply #8 on:** December 05, 2002, 01:03:20 PM »

That is not a new concept. Richard Dawkings described similar hypothesis in the 70s. They did not specifically mention sulfides but the principle of inorganic compounds serving as starting point of evolution, etc.

SLO - the aliens are irrelevant. Even if the life on earth was seeded, it had to originate somewhere and the process was either spontaneous/evolutionary or supernatural.

miko

Vulcan · « **Reply #9 on:** December 05, 2002, 01:15:35 PM »

Poor Hortland, maybe hes worried the Muslims are gonna overtake the Christians in numbers soon?

bounder · « **Reply #10 on:** December 05, 2002, 01:30:35 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by miko2d
That is not a new concept. Richard Dawkings described similar hypothesis in the 70s. They did not specifically mention sulfides but the principle of inorganic compounds serving as starting point of evolution, etc.

SLO - the aliens are irrelevant. Even if the life on earth was seeded, it had to originate somewhere and the process was either spontaneous/evolutionary or supernatural.

miko

Exactly - "Aliens put us here" goes no further towards positing a speculatory theory on the origins of life.

This new theory seems to stem (pun intended) from research into the history of the cell, particularly to the break from prokaryotic to eukaryotic about 1,500,000,000 years ago.

Of course prokaryotic life seems to have emerged roughly 2,000,000,000 years before that.

The companion papers are far more solid, and offer theories on how eukaryotic cells coopted prokaryotic ones to perform specific functions, like release energy, photsynthesize etc.

This is why our Mitochondria (energy producing parts of a cell) have their own DNA, one which is only passed from mother to offspring, and not mixed by sex, making it much easier to trace matrilineage.

So I think this story was actually the controversial headline grabber hoping to prompt more interest in the science behind it, than in the theory itself.

SLO · « **Reply #11 on:** December 05, 2002, 01:33:46 PM »

You assumed i was talkin bout aliens:p

not talking about aliens...talking about pictographs.

I want some X-planin bout dem:D

whgates3 · « **Reply #12 on:** December 05, 2002, 02:16:15 PM »

prehistoric southpark

Saurdaukar · « **Reply #13 on:** December 05, 2002, 02:32:09 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Hortlund
Yeah, this one's definitively got potential.
Instead of "life evolved in the primitive oceans, or the primordeal soup" we get
"life evolved inside a rock".

As opposed to - a luminicent being waved his magic wand?

-sudz- · « **Reply #14 on:** December 05, 2002, 03:05:45 PM »

If the article is right, I wonder if the theory would lend itself to experimentation. Surely we could recreate these deposits in the lab and simulate, if necessary, a lightning bolt.

Now that would be an experiment! (As long as they don't get their sulfides from "Abby Normal's" body.

-sudz